Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey

Imagine the African jungle ten million years ago. The cradle of life is full of obstacles, traps, dangers, and predators just waiting to be reassured by some reckless victim who just steps out of the safety of her hiding place just before finding food or water for herself and her offspring. An age is one in which life is not worth much. In which the fastest, strongest and most dangerous shape the fate of the environment they rule.

Now imagine being in the skin of the weakest at the bottom of the food chain. Walking foods for tigers, panthers, pythons, elephants, hyenas, boars, eagles, poisonous snakes and crocodiles. Your only advantage is the fact that you have a slightly larger brain and reside in groups. Even the slightest progress is the result of hard work and trial and error, the transfer of knowledge and learning in these harsh circumstances over millions of years.

Congratulations, you've created a picture of Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey.

In short, this is a story of human evolution. The thorny path we have walked so that today, from the comfort of our armchairs, we can feel at least part of the difficult life that our ancestors led. Fortunately, this is where we are because human development was not my responsibility. If I were, we would at best eat berries and drink water from the spring, and I am more inclined to think that we would not even be there. Judging by the game, the monkeys did a tremendous job and I can tell you - evolution is not onion and water.

Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey is a vision of human development brought to us by Panache Digital Games, a development studio founded in 2014 by Patrice Désilets. A veteran of the video game industry, Désilets has worked as a creative director on the development of blockbusters such as Assassin's Creed, Assassin's Creed II and Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, with Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. Because of him and his pedigree, many expected Ancestors to be Assassin's Creed placed in the dawn of man, but this game simply does not fit into this category except perhaps for its recognizably impressive climbing mechanics.

Moreover, if it were to be placed in a genre, it would probably be most accurate to say that it is a survival game in which you control the main characters from a third party. You can replace the monkey you control at any time with another one. Whether they are dying of the teeth of time or because of the difficult fate that has caught them too young, apes are a consumable commodity in this game. You just have to make sure there are enough of them and keep them alive for as long as they need to pass on the genetic mutations they experience during the game to the next generation to ensure progress.

THE GAME OF LIFE

Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey is a game full of innovation, and the effort put into it is evident in all the elements of this title. It is a journey that tries to show as faithfully as possible the journey that man himself has gone through, but in a way that is not appropriate to today. Don't get me wrong. Today, when most games are fast, explosive, clearly focused, Ancestors offers a whole new approach that requires players to pay full attention to it. And without too much guidance, find her story and discover the secrets behind this title. However, this is exactly where the biggest weakness of this game lies.

Most players will resent her repetitiveness, monotony, weight, lack of tutorials at the beginning to offer clear instructions and guidance, lack of story to guide us through this journey, and motivation that would not stem from sheer curiosity and the need to end a game that ends anyway know. I share a good deal of these objections, but I know that the journey that man has undergone has not been dynamic or easy, that there has not been a book of directions that guided the first human apes, and that there was no story other than a desire to survive and continue the species.


Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey, in depicting the cruelty and gravity of human evolution, is definitely a successful experiment and offers a game that will not suit everyone. Maybe we are too spoiled and used to having games feed us like newborns while we lie down and not thinking, passing mission after mission and task after task. In this title, basic survival is a success, and, as absurd as it may sound, it is sometimes simply not dramatic enough.